How to create an editorial calendar for your social media

If you engage on social media it is likely that you have a digital strategy in place. Having a social media editorial calendar can help you guide your social media marketing across your business. An editorial calendar is your game plan as it allows you to plan ahead, set goals, anticipate trends and measure success.

Goal setting

How many items of content would you like to produce? You may want to write three blogs per week, five tweets per blog, along with two Google+ and two Facebook updates for each post. That adds up to 81 pieces of content per week or 324 per month! You may want to start small and focus on starting with 48 pieces of content per month and increase that by 20% each quarter.

Frequency – Determining the time frame for your calendar

Start with a quarterly calendar and then break it down into monthly, weekly and daily calendars. You can easily identify seasonal trends or tie it in with marketing campaigns or sales drives. Using this you can determine when and how often you want to engage.

Share it

A social media editorial calendar should be a collaboration tool. Communicate it to your marketing staff, management, PR and sales teams so that you can get their input. It could also spark online conversations, as your staffs are constantly aware of where and how you will be communicating.

Measurement

Having a calendar in place helps you to reflect and learn from past social media marketingcampaigns. Your social media editorial calendar should enhance your social media marketing and help you reach your content marketing goals. Measuring performance to determine areas for improvement and benchmarking success is pivotal to any social media strategy.